Quote:Objectives. To examine the association between Colorado’s legalization of recreational cannabis use and opioid-related deaths.
Methods. We used an interrupted time-series design (2000–2015) to compare changes in level and slope of monthly opioid-related deaths before and after Colorado stores began selling recreational cannabis. We also describe the percent change in opioid-related deaths by comparing the unadjusted model-smoothed number of deaths at the end of follow-up with the number of deaths just prior to legalization.
Results. Colorado’s legalization of recreational cannabis sales and use resulted in a 0.7 deaths per month (b = −0.68; 95% confidence interval = −1.34, −0.03) reduction in opioid-related deaths. This reduction represents a reversal of the upward trend in opioid-related deaths in Colorado.
Conclusions. Legalization of cannabis in Colorado was associated with short-term reductions in opioid-related deaths. As additional data become available, research should replicate these analyses in other states with legal recreational cannabis.

Instead you have parents totally over-reacting and sending Weed smoking teens to rehab. Boom times for that industry there. Like anything pleasurable people can overdo it but I equate it to sending smokers to the priory.

responsible use should not be stigmatized. it's resulted in lower crime rates, lower DUI incidents, lots of tax money that can be put into recovery programs and healthcare... it's such a no brainer for governments to allow production and distribution, control quality and they can tax the living fuck out of it like alcohol or tobacco for all i care.
fuck, if cannabis was legally produced on an industrial scale, the tax that could be brought in by selling 3.5g at a standard price right now (£20-30 depending on potency) is phenomenally huge. If small time dealers can make reasonable money from it, so can industrial scale manufacturers, even with the costs of quality control and security.

The UK is becoming one of the most restrictive western countries on the planet. How depressing that even many US states are light years ahead. What is the ACMD for? They recommend TCDOs for many RC Benzos and the Government ignores them and place all mentioned in schedule 1. So Etizolam prescribed in Italy has apparently no medical uses. Am convinced Diclazepam would be a better taper candidate than Diazepam if 0.2mg tablets could be prescribed, enabling slow tapers. Also can't see many recreational users craving 4-ChloroDiazepam a potent Benzo antagonist.

Forgive me, but I'm struggling to see how correlation could be linked to causation here.
Are we expected to conclude that cannabis is substituting for opioids in some way? Aside from my not really understanding how that can be possible, even if it were the case, cannabis is no more readily available now (in practice, not law) than it was before its legalisation, yet it seemingly wasn't doing much to prevent opioid ODs before then.
Or are we meant to suppose that the fact that cannabis was legalised while opioids were not is somehow driving a message into potential drug users that opioids are much harder and nastier drugs than cannabis, and thus deterring them from trying them in the first place? That idea is slightly more plausible to me, but the high number of people using illegal drugs in spite of the easy availability of alcohol and nicotine (which are considerably stronger and more addictive than many illegals) makes me doubt it also.

This is in a place where it is legalized and you can just go in and buy in a store.

People want to get high, and weighing up the risks, people are going to quality legal cannabis instead of illegal harder drugs, or even moving from them to cannabis because of the legal freedom to do so. Either way, less people are taking opioids for whatever reason and opting for cannabis, if people are self medicating with opioids for pain, in a lot of cases cannabis can be just as effective.

Legalization in some states has resulted in drops in crime rates, DUI's, and brought in a ton of tax money. There's not really been any downsides.